NEW YORK: Nielsen//NetRatings has reported that only 9.2 per cent of all companies advertising online use pop-up ads, despite its seemingly ubiquitous presence in 2002.

Advertisers purchased and launched more than 11.3 billion pop-up ad impressions (including pop-under ads) for the first seven months of 2002, comprising just two per cent of the online advertising market.

According to the Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance service, the global standard in Internet audience measurement and analysis, pop-up advertising is defined as any ad that spawns a new browser without user input, and includes pop-up ads that focus to the front or back (pop-under) of the active browser. Niche categories such as community, yellow pages and games sites posted levels of pop-up advertising well above the market average of two per cent, but broader categories such as portals, search engines and shopping sites shied away from utilizing the technology. Only a select few advertisers opted to use pop-up technology, with just 63 companies launching 80 per cent of all pop-up advertising while the other 20 per cent was split between 2,145 advertisers.

Pop-ups quickly gained notoriety since their introduction in early 2001, with the ads attracting negative feedback from Internet surfers, says a company release. During the first half of the year, advertisers used pop-up ads primarily as a direct marketing strategy as opposed to employing pop-up ads to build brands. More than 6.5 billion impressions or 58 per cent of all pop-up ads attempt to drive traffic to the advertiser's site, while 26 per cent offer incentives aimed at increasing sales. This indicates that 84 per cent of all pop-up ads use a direct marketing tactic, much higher than the industry average of 64 per cent.

Percent Share of Pop-up Advertising by Strategy (January-July 2002)

Popup Impressions Share of All